A/N: If you're not here for domestic, life-on-the-Sunny fluff, these next few chapters will waste your time. I've drafted a lot of content for Disinhibition besides such fluff, but I'm in no rush to get there… Expect a significant amount of what the internet would call 'self-indulgent garbage.' I think there's a meme about it somewhere. You've been warned :')

P.S. I'm taking creative liberties with the interior of the crow's nest. Live yo life.

P.P.S. This chapter is a little rough, I know, but I wanted to get it out since it is just twaddle… I'll edit more thoroughly later, but tryna keep the train movin…


Though her eyes were closed, Fi knew something was wrong.

It definitely didn't smell like her new room near the Sunny's aquarium…

Oh!

Fi sat up suddenly, eyes popping open. "Zo..."

It was bright morning, and she was alone in the crow's nest.

Shit.

She'd fallen asleep up here. Next to…

Both corners of her lips turned up.

Right.

Fi ran her hands through here hair as she eyed the fabric across her body.

A blanket?

She put a hand over her face to hide her widening smile…

After counting to thirty and schooling her expression, she folded the blanket then hopped up, stretching and cracking her joints as she looked out on the bright mid-morning sun and sea.

She turned for the exit but made a pit-stop under the pull-up bar. With an upwards hop, she snagged the cross bar with her right hand and did a one-arm pull-up then dropped back to her feet.

Damn. That shit was hard without any chakra assistance.

Fi made for the exit and noiselessly dropped from the crow's nest to the lawn deck. She followed her ears and nose to the galley, where the Straw Hats feasted with their usual enthusiasm.

The crew offered her various greeting and smiles after Luffy shouted her name around a mouthful of eggs.

As she sat in her place at the table, Sanji approached with a mug of tea and plate of food, giving her a heartfelt smile. "Good morning, my swan."

"Morning." She met his cobalt eyes with a small smile. "Thank you."

Nami gently bumped her shoulder in a warm, non-verbal greeting as she flipped the page of her newspaper.

Zoro outright hazed her.

"Look what the cat finally dragged in."

With a little tilt of her head, she regarded the man whose hair stuck up all over the place, looking as bedraggled and sleepy as ever as he yawned.

Fi found it unusually difficult to keep a grin off her face.

Instead of trying to be heard over Franky and Luffy's sudden shouting match, Fi settled for rolling her eyes at him.

Zoro merely shook his head, covering his own smile with an unconvincing frown, and resumed shoveling food into his face.

She tried not to think about the warmth in her damn bones.


Over the next week at sea, Fiore found a new normal as she fully and consciously joined daily life aboard the Thousand Sunny.

It actually wasn't too painful for her to drop her guard and participate, at least to some extent, when she'd normally have kept to herself. Even a distrusting, cynical ninja like her couldn't deny that they were trustworthy to a damn fault.

Fi helped with all sorts of tasks and duties—when she was permitted. The Straw Hats treated her far too delicately while her shoulder healed.

The crew at least let her take many lookout shifts, since one only had to sit still to be effective. Her internal clock was having a tough time finding a diurnal schedule, but she was beginning to prefer the quiet nights anyway.

Besides being overbearing about her injury, the crew was easy-going about her habits. No one seemed to mind the way she silently hovered at the periphery much of the time, or her general irreverence for social etiquette.

Nami and Robin cackled when she posed inappropriate questions about cyborg private parts. Sanji and Brook encouraged her bad manners, while poor Usopp blushed and stammered at her few but often foul words. Luffy and Chopper were a little too pure to truly catch her tone.

Best of all—Zoro was endlessly easy to piss off. It only took one raunchy suggestion about the implied impotence of needing more than one sword, or simply a few well-placed chakra pokes.

Though she expected it, the noisiness of the crew could still set her on edge. She often took to high places, balancing on a railing or fixture nearby but not too close, trying to find a little relief from the incessant shrieking.

During the most earsplitting times, Fi outright yearned to swim in the quiet sea again, where it was a different kind of silent when you ducked under the waves. But, through her years, she'd learned that more severe injuries were made much worse by the salinity of the sea.

So, until her shoulder healed a little more, she'd stay out of the water and on the dry, boisterous Sunny.


One morning early in the week, Usopp and Chopper offered to teach her about their garden. Fi happily obliged, glad for the distraction while she couldn't train or pick fights to pass the time. The pair spent the morning describing all the functional flora in their garden, showing her various processes for turning plants into either medicine or weapons.

But when Luffy joined them after lunch, the young trio revealed their campaign to witness every ninja cliché in the book.

Fi dealt with their endless, exhausting curiosity in various ways.

The easiest options were to either leave a clone to distract them until she escaped to another part of the ship, or simply use a substitution jutsu and disappear without a word.

The three young Straw Hats still got stars in their eyes at the latter, when the smoke inevitably cleared to reveal an inanimate object had taken her place or, much to her own amusement, the next most proximate Straw Hat.

It wasn't her fault that person tended to be a sleepy, surly marimo.

Sometimes she answered the boys' chants of 'nin-ja-show' by poking them rapid-fire in their ribs, advising they dodge if they didn't like it.

Once, in an endeavor to put down their enthusiasm, she unintentionally confused the crew with three different Fi-clones around the Sunny at the same time. Each clone chased down one of the three boys jabbing at them until they were all pleading for her to stop.

Zoro was particularly wounded by the 'ninja sham' after one of her clones gave him the same—okay, admittedly rougher—treatment. The man attempted to retaliate, only to have her clone disappear in a characteristic 'poof' of smoke that was apparently 'tackier than her shitty purple hair.'

The swordsman lamented about it until an annoyed Sanji knocked him on his ass, starting an entertaining fight.

The original, non-clone Fi watched from the roof of the crow's nest.


It didn't take long for Fi to identify her preferred time of day on the Sunny.

After dinner, the crew lounged around the deck, generally enjoying themselves but with less volume.

Luffy and Chopper tended to rise and fall with the sun, so by evening, they were usually touch quieter. The adults varied a little more on the times they woke and went to bed, but a few hours after dinner, most were fatigued.

Zoro, on the other hand, seemed to like the darkness. Whether he had watch duty or not, the man was always awake well into the hours of the next day.

It was just an organic thing they developed, borne mainly after the sun fell, when she and the green-haired cutie were the only ones awake. She found herself completely partial to his proximity, whatever the circumstance, and he seemed to reciprocate.

On the nights when Fi was in the crow's nest for lookout, he trained rigorously or drank and then snoozed nearby. Fi watched the sea and the snoring moss head, still half-amazed at the shift in their dynamic from the weeks prior.

In the mornings, she often kicked him awake as she departed for breakfast, prodding his ribs with chakra-enhanced toes and earning his delightful, sleepy swearing.

The only time Fi didn't arrive last to breakfast was when she towed along a grouchy, yawning Zoro. It earned them a few raised eyebrows and much teasing from the rest of the crew, but she only encouraged it.

She loved to make the man's face red or elicit his dirtier side—both were wins.

If it was Zoro's turn for night watch, Fi napped by the man, usually curled next to him on the couch they shared in the crow's nest. Though he tended to let her sleep, he seemed all too satisfied to return the occasional rude awakening, dragging her off the cushions by her ankle. The moss head learned the hard way to stay out of reach if he chose to wake her in such a manner.

And despite that the man essentially functioned as Chopper's annoyingly shrewd little helper elf, he pitied her enough to involve her in some of his training.

Fi often stood on top of the barbell as he pressed it over his chest, over his head, or squat with it across his back. As she balanced above him, she always made an attempt to distract him with some lewdness. Despite his objections, they'd only fallen over once.

And anyway, Zoro gave it back to her two fold—they flirted explicitly, both shameless.

Still, he would hear nothing of her participation when he was swinging around a loaded barbell like it was a goddamn katana, or anytime it was clamped between his teeth. She had a stronger bite than most, but Fi wouldn't bet on her own jaws against that man's.

Although her words were mostly designed to try the man's patience, Zoro genuinely impressed her.

His absurd strength made Fi sweat, but there was something else about his discipline and resolve… It made her warm in a way she didn't recognize.

It was a thought that nagged at her.


Through the week, Sanji continued to allow Fi in the galley whenever she wandered in and sat on the counter.

Sometimes they chatted, sometimes they were quiet. Either way, the man had a gentle, no-bullshit demeanor that she appreciated immensely. She also rather enjoyed his sexual freedom that was often misinterpreted as perverted.

While each of the Straw Hats exuberantly and noisily carved themselves into her long-dead stone heart, Fi would take pleasure in murdering any being or creature who caused Sanji too much grief.

To put it lightly.

And no matter how often she offered her assistance, he only accepted her help as a 'taste-tester.' She was suspicious that he simply didn't want her to get in the way or ruin anything, but she stopped over-thinking it when he started pairing her snacks with aperitifs.

Sanji also gave her the four-digit passcode to the kitchen security system, to all but Robin and Nami's dismay. The blonde told her she was free to snack as she wanted since he trusted her.

Fi also learned it was a newly installed security system, too, resulting from Luffy's most recent midnight snack attack. It was same episode that forced the Straw Hats to stop on that fateful, no-name, island a few weeks back.

For that, she resolved to not get too irritated with the captain's appetite in the future.


Probably due to her more frequent complaints of boredom, Franky, Brook, and Usopp took an afternoon to teach her how to operate the vessels of the Sunny's soldier dock system.

First, Brook and Usopp showed her how to control the Mini Merry II. Everything was fine until the skeleton asked to see her panties.

Usopp looked terrified as Fi calmly explained her plot to tie a dumbbell to Brook's skull and send his head to the bottom of the ocean if he ever asked her such a thing again. The skeleton yohoho-ed, but she insisted she wasn't kidding, and he'd not asked again.

That same morning, Franky showed her how to use the waiver, explaining its mechanics before taking her on a ride. She stood behind him on the device, hanging onto him as they blasted around the ocean near the Sunny, skipping across the waves like a flat stone.

It was exhilarating, and she couldn't wait to give it a try, but the big man hooted with glee when they switched places and she stood in front of the too-tall handlebars.

Laughing in big, obnoxious gauffs, he promised to install a step for her since she was too short to operate it on her own.

Fi frowned and turned on him, giving him several stern pokes to the ribs, only to realize it didn't work on a cyborg with a torso of metal.

Franky continued bellowing in laughter and egged her on by making fun of her stature—at least until she hit upon a tender spot.

His ass wasn't metal, after all.

Unfortunately, Zoro had been in earshot where he napped at the Sunny's bow and picked up on the fact that he could annoy her by insulting her height. The shitty marimo spread that among the crew within the week.

The Straw Hats could be a bunch of little busy-body gossips when the mood struck them.

After lunch that same day, Usopp and an enthusiastic Luffy took her on a trip in the shark submerge.

For Fi, it was fun for a total of three minutes.

She belatedly recalled the rubber fool couldn't lower his voice to save his life, and that Usopp matched his captain's volume. They shouted about every fish and wondered what it tasted like, veritable chatterboxes with vocal chords rivaling that of the biggest whales in the seas.

Fi's ears rang, but she plugged them with her fingers and tried to enjoy their excitement all the same—it made sense for Luffy, a devil fruit eater, to be enthralled with life under the sea.

She lasted about twenty minutes.

Her nerves were shot. It was the way their voices bounced off the metal walls, echoing sharply, assaulting her senses from multiple times from every damn angle.

The ringing got quite painful, and the resulting headache felt like it would turn her head inside-out. It hurt enough that she couldn't tell if it was psychosomatic or not, nor did she care.

"Hey, Usopp?"

He didn't hear her over his argument with Luffy, and she realized her voice was hardly a whisper.

Clearing her throat, she repeated it louder. "Usopp."

He glanced over. "Yeah? Hey, you feel okay? You look a little pale, even for you!"

She nodded. "I'm fine, but I need to go back now."

"Of course, sure." He waved at Luffy, hollering. "Sit down, dammit! We're going back, and you need to sit DOWN!"

"AAWWWWWEE." Luffy slumped over. "Already?"

She looked at the kid. "Sorry Luffy, it's my fault. We'll stay longer next time."

'Cause she'd steal a strong sedative from Copper and covertly administer a dose to rubber-boy beforehand.

He watched her impassively for several beats, then offered his usual, easy grin. "I'm just glad we finally got to go!"

The boys resumed their bickering as Usopp expertly navigated back towards the Sunny.

It was easier than expected—she figured Luffy would argue to stay longer.

Huh… They really didn't care that she was… If they saw her demons, they acted like it was nothing.

The two were still yelling by the time they reached the ship again, and she was ten minutes closer to bashing in her own head if only to get rid of the stabbing in her cranium.

There were two Straw Hats waiting for them when as the shark submerge docked in its holding stall. The little reindeer hung over the railing along the dock a little too precariously for an anvil.

She ignored the urge to use a substitution jutsu and trade places with Zoro the second she got a glimpse of his green spikes through the window.

Instead, she waited patiently while Usopp popped the hatch, following him out at normal, snail pace.

As she climbed up the ladder, her eyes found Zoro's immediately.

She honestly couldn't decide if the set to his jaw was angry or because he was trying not to laugh.

Chopper called out excitedly, grabbing her attention. "FIIIOOR—GAAAH!"

He slipped as she might have predicted, but Zoro grabbed the kid's antler, steading him with one hand, not even glancing down. Both looked far too accustomed with the routine.

The doctor continued like nothing happened. "Wasn't it too coooool?!"

His high-pitched voice seared her, but she just nodded, stepping off the top of the shark submerge and onto its small, wooden dock.

"Definitely cool."

Zoro's gaze picked at her, and she knew the damned man saw her stress despite that she was perfectly composed.

The three boys were immediately engaged with one another, their voices were still echoing around the small space, far too loud.

She turned to the moss head again, who was reading her too damn easily.

"What?"

"At what point did you think that was a good idea?"

"Shut up."

He huffed a laugh, but the way his open eye roved her face told her that he wasn't amused.

"I wanted to go." She breathed the words in explanation, rubbing an eye socket with the heel of her hand, trying to find any relief for the pounding headache. "Fuck."

The explicative was emphatic enough to deepen Zoro's frown. "Oi. Up top, then."

She inhaled evenly, pulling the threads of her control a little tighter as she nodded, not arguing for once.

They turned together towards the ladder to the lawn deck, and he motioned her ahead of him.

"Go on. Idiotic ninja first."

She gladly acquiesced in spite of her words. "So you can stare at my ass?"

"Heh. Definitely a fringe benefit, now that you mention it."

Despite herself, she, too, breathed a short laugh.

Damn him.

Finally back on the lawn deck, Fi rolled her shoulders out and felt sheer relief having the volume turned down a few notches. It wouldn't last—the boys would come topside soon, too.

Fi turned to Zoro as he emerged from the hatch, but he spoke first.

"S'just me in the nest."

"See you there."

She didn't wait for him to respond, immediately building chakra in her legs as she crouched in preparation and launched herself upwards. She put a hand on the balcony railing and swung both legs up and over, clearing it.

Fi made a bee-line across the interior of the crow's nest and softly groaned as she fell face-first onto the navy blue couch, trying to breathe deeply. Being above the noise helped.

After a few minutes, she heard him making his way up the rope ladder, but she didn't bother to move.

Zoro didn't say a word as he tromped across the room and found a seat on the floor in front of the couch. He simply reclined back against the furniture and crossed his arms behind his head to get comfortable.

He watched the sea while she let the pounding headache recede infinitesimally.

After a while, she still felt like shit. Before she could think too much about it, Fi did something she hadn't done in so damn long.

"Zoro?"

She turned so her cheek rested on the cushion she could see him, and true to form, he turned his sharp attention to her.

"Can you find me something small to eat? Please?"

"Uh..." His brows knit together, realizing she was really asking. "Sure."

She spoke as he hopped up and strode away. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah."

Zoro returned a short few minutes later with a plate of food obviously thrown together by Sanji, since the fruits were neatly assorted by color and sweetness.

She dragged herself upright, sitting cross-legged as she took the plate he handed her.

"Sexual tension aside, I could fucking kiss you right now."

"Che." He sat on the floor again, right in front of her, reclining back against the couch since her legs were pulled up. "I still can't believe you said please without an attitude."

Fi immediately dug into the fruit, and after a minute, she held her plate out over his shoulder so it was in front of him.

He glanced over his shoulder as he plucked two pieces of green melon off her plate.

There was something in the way he looked at her just now… Such a casual, familiar thing.

She ate quietly and put her plate to the side when she finished, laying back down and stretching out.

Her eyes traced the lines on the back of Zoro's tanned knuckles, where his hands cradled his head, mossy spikes sticking up here and there. Leaning back as he was, his bulky mass was but a few hand lengths from her face, his smell all the more potent with their nearness.

She sighed quietly, whispering the admittance. "It was worth it."

His low voice rumbled against the cushion. "I know."

"I'm gonna sleep now."

"I'll wake you for dinner."

For a second time, Fi asked something else she hadn't since, well...

"You'll stay?"

"Right here."


The next day, Fi spent a quiet afternoon with Robin and Nami in the observation deck.

The two women described the library's organization and were endlessly willing to give access to and discuss texts and maps.

Robin also caught on that Fi had more formal tutelage than the rest of the crew. She revealed that her particular ninja clan prided themselves on keeping and maintaining vast archives, so she was well-educated by circumstance.

While Nami and Robin worked on their own tasks, Fi read about the early East Blue crew's discovery of the so-called Lost Island. The account about Apis and grandpa Ryu was recorded and written by Robin at a much later date but featured only the first five Straw Hats.

She had a hard time imaging those fresh, young faces, probably naive in many ways, yet to see the Grand Line and New World. Robin's logs helped her picture it a little better.

After a day among the surprisingly extensive logs and reference material, Fi joined Nami and Robin in the bathhouse for a relaxing, hot soak.

The easy female friendship was a new experience for Fi—the sex ratio of the Fang clan was heavily male-biased—and something she didn't know she was missing.

After a while, Nami toweled off and departed, needing to check the ship's heading before dinnertime. Robin and Fi remained a while longer, soaking in hot water peacefully.

Fi read about the early crew's experience on Reverse Mountain and its connection to Brook, while Robin continued making notes in one of her logs in preparation for making landfall in just a short couple days.

"Oh, Fi." Robin got her attention. "At this next stop, would you like to pick up a piece of comfortable furniture for the crow's nest?"

She turned her eyes to Robin's, thinking of the various pieces already scattered around the room by the huge windows.

"Isn't there plenty?"

"Well, yes, but everyone had a say in what went up there. They picked out what they wanted to use during their night-watch shifts."

"Ah, thanks, but that's quite alright." Fi shrugged, thinking about how she'd have to leave them sooner rather than later anyway. "You've done too much already."

"The boys' beanbag chairs and old recliners are extremely unhygienic. I advise you avoid them." There was a mischievous look in her icy blue eyes. "Might I ask from where you've been keeping lookout?"

"Sometimes from the roof. I like the open air."

"And how about other times—you stay inside?"

Fi pursed her lips. "I do."

"Where do you find it most comfortable to sit?"

Damn astute woman. She narrowed her eyes at Robin.

"Take a guess, 'cause I'm not gonna say it."

"Fufufu—I thought so. Doesn't it bother your sensitive nose?"

"The whole crow's nest—hell—the entire ship hurts my nose." She complained. "Pirates are the smelliest."

"Are you sure we can't add something for you?" Robin checked despite the way she peered at Fi knowingly. "You don't have to share Zoro's odorous, sweaty couch."

"I don't mind." Fi turned and laid her head back against the edge of the tub, pensive. "It smells like… steel. And seawater."

Zoro always leaned his swords against the couch when he trained or napped. He also regularly sat the floor in front of the couch, rewrapping the grips or polishing the metal of his weapons with cleaning oil and steel wool.

And if he was that sweaty, he slept on the floor wherever he dropped.

Fi enjoyed the man's sea-salt perspiration anyway, mostly because the way it dripped down his bronze skin, and how his sweat-soaked hair darkened just enough to truly resemble seaweed…

"Well, let me know if you change your mind." Robin murmured, watching Fi another moment before turning her attention back to her notes.

"Mmh." Fi hummed absently, mind's eye a little stuck on a sweaty swordsman.


After finishing her bath with Robin and surviving the usual dinner ruckus, Fi lounged in her bed, lamp on, reading another of Robin's accounts—this time about the woman's experiences on an island called Skypiea.

Fi's eyes had just begun to tire when she heard heavy boots tromping across the otherwise quiet lawn deck then up the stairs towards her quarters.

Curiously, she sat her book to the side and rolled to her belly, propping herself up on her elbows as she tilted her ear towards her door and waited.

A visit from Zoro?

She was dressed in black cotton sleep shorts and a white tank top, so no need to prepare or get up.

A dozen footsteps later, and the man paused just before her ajar door without opening it. "Fi?"

"Come in, Zoro."

He pushed the door open and leaned against the frame.

"Sorry, but can I, ah, borrow some steel wool? Usopp's an asshole and melted my entire stash, and Wado's getting this spot…"

She motioned to her desk with her head, where her supplies were still spread out from a few days ago. "Of course. All yours."

Zoro eyed her for a beat but finally crossed the threshold and moved to her desk, turning his gaze to her gleaming weapons and the few remaining grimy ones she'd yet to clean.

If she was being generous, she'd say he was close to cracking a smile.

"You can work at my desk if you want." She offered casually. "It's already set up for the task."

He looked to her again. "You don't need to be polite with me."

"I know." Still propped on her elbows, she rest her cheek in her palm and continued to look up at him, matter-of-fact. "I happen to like the idea of you in my room."

He kept his eye on hers as he took a seat at her chair. "In that case, thanks."

"Push my weapons to the side." She directed as she pulled the book in front of her again, opening to her bookmark and looking down. "You won't hurt anything except yourself."

Zoro gave a quiet snort at her thinly-veiled word of caution and turned to his work.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him carefully relocate her shuriken and kunai to the head of the desk, near the animal figurine from Luffy. He removed all three of his swords from behind his haramaki and sat two to the side. Unsheathing the white sword, he laid it across her desk carefully, setting about his task.

Was the white sword the one he called Wado? Was it the legendary Wado Ichimonji?

Fi admittedly read slower this time, since her mind kept wandering to the swordsman quietly working at her desk.

After finishing with the white sword and setting it to the side, he looked to her as he picked up one of her dirty kunai. "I can take care of these while I'm at it."

She turned her head to him. "You don't have to do that."

"I want to."

A smile tugged on her features. "Then, thanks."

He turned back to his work, and she pretended to read for a while longer.

Fi knew she'd have to reread everything she'd skimmed since that man sat down.


Zoro's hands worked methodically, and he paid attention to the chore. It was a trivial thing, really, but when Fi's kunai were polished to perfection, he felt annoyingly accomplished.

He absolutely suppressed the horrible and embarrassing notion that a microscopic part of him liked doing something small for the little ninja.

Obviously not.

He simply enjoyed the task and took pride in well-kept blades.

Goddammit.

Before such an inane thing could ruin the peace that came with using his hands, Zoro turned his attention to the dirty ninja stars on her desk.

The shuriken took considerably longer to clean with the intricacies of the razor-sharp edge, but just as he was finishing the last one, Fi closed her book and pushed it to the side.

He turned his eye to her, mentally filing away the image of her casually stretched out across her bed when she rolled to her side and propped her head on her palm to regard him.

"Will you tell me about your swords?" She requested.

Her words stopped him short for a second, and his hands stilled. "What about them?"

"The white one… You called it Wado? What's its grade? What about the other two? Are they named, too?"

She wanted to know about his swords?

His confused silence made her backtrack.

"Ah. Boring, generic talk for a swordsman. Forget it"

Fi reached for her book again, pink creeping up her cheeks, but he finally found his voice despite that he still felt surprised by her question.

"You really wanna know?"

She hesitated but nodded at him, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and even managing to look a little sheepish for the first time in front of him... perhaps for the first time in her damn life.

This girl…

He sat the cleaned shuriken on her desk as he inhaled steadily.

Zoro launched into a short description of each of this three swords, giving their names and grades as she requested. She was wrong about the question being boring—it was one of the few topics Zoro cared to talk about at any length.

Her eyebrows were raised by the end of his answer, and she was sitting up, cross-legged on her bed.

"How'd you come by Shusui? A black blade from Wano? Is it a very different kind of katana?"

"You know which questions to ask." He didn't fight the grin caused by her interest as he reached behind himself, locating the sword and pulling it forward.

She smiled in a tight-lipped, sharing way as she took the sheathed Shusui he offered. "Among ninja, my clan is renowned for their records of such things. The names are somewhat familiar at least."

He watched her examine the sheath's simple pattern, running her hands down the length of it. She palmed the grip firmly, a small smile still playing on her lips.

She slowly slid the sheath halfway down the blade, eyes dancing along the hamon, inspecting the hand-guard.

All hell.

Curiosity suited the girl.

She looked up, finding his gaze immediately, and he very nearly flinched when the eagerness in her eyes made his goddamn cock twitch.

Fuck—okay, he definitely liked the look on her face right now, but what the hell was his problem?

"May I?"

"Carefully." He warned, wholly unhappy about his low tone but hoping she merely took it as sternness.

He was pretty sure he hallucinated the evocative anticipation in her features, but the way she kept her excited gaze on his for a few beat and bit on her bottom lip was doing things to him.

Nothing to do with her bright heliotrope and metal tones… or the way that damn tank-top was thin and fitted and short enough to reveal her navel piercings…

Fi looked back down to Shusui and measuredly pulled the blade free from its sheath.

She ghosted her fingers down the saw-tooth hardening line then ran her thumb perpendicular across the sharp edge, expertly testing its sharpness in a way that wouldn't cut her. After carefully gauging its weight, she gripped the hilt with both hands, slowing raising it in front of herself.

Satisfaction was written all over her face as she eyed the blade, and her low hum of approval sent another wave of heat through his body, pooling in his low abdomen.

Goddammit...

Did she have any idea what she was doing to him?!

Zoro inhaled slowly, speaking to distract himself from his hard-on.

"You're awfully comfortable with that for someone who isn't a swordsman."

Her eyes found his again, and she actually smiled, as wide as he'd seen yet. For all his debauched thoughts, it was a bright expression that captivated Zoro almost as much as her next words.

"I'm no swordswoman, but I learned the basics long ago."

He blinked at her, staring blankly for probably too long before he finally responded.

"…Are you tellin' me you know how to use a katana?"

She nodded, still grinning. "Yup. I haven't trained with one in, hell, fifteen years. But in another life, I wasn't too bad with katana like yours. Heheh—only ever used one though."

He clamped his jaw shut and shook his head. "I, uh… should have guessed."

She lowered Shusui, sheathing it again in one smooth motion. "So—are you going to tell me how you came to possess this?"

"Um…" He tried and mostly failed to blink away the unreasonably sexy image of Fi wielding a katana. Fuck. "Ah, right…"

Zoro briefly described his peculiar fight with Ryuma back on Thriller Bark, glad for the disruption from his inner machinations.

He forced himself to relax, toeing off his boots and leaning back in Fi's desk chair. He raised his legs to stretch them out next to Fi, along her bed, and folded his hands behind his head.

And he was encouraged by the way Fi fully faced him, still sitting cross-legged at the edge of her bed closest to him, actually listening. He tried not to fixate on the fact that her bent knee touched his outer thigh with the way she leaned back on her palms, or how she watched him with those darkened gems of eyes.

"How'd you get the cursed Kitetsu?" She eyed the weapon behind him briefly, but her eyes glinted with delight. "It's mean."

He chuckled at her observation. "I can't believe you really want to hear about this shit."

"I already told you—Fang have a thing for information." She pressed her lips together, sniffing. "You have three named, high-grade swords. It's not insignificant intel."

Her excuse was betrayed by the rosy color that had bloomed and persisted on her cheek bones and the skin of her chest.

He'd never known passive details to be so goddamn distracting.

Zoro found himself describing their crazy stop at Loguetown, and how a now-marine-captain picked it out of a barrel of random katana, losing her shit when she found out who he was, a rivalry that persisted through today.

He didn't know why Fi started frowning, but the reason for her poor humor was quickly revealed. "You have a thing for her or something? The swordswoman?"

"What's it to ya, half-pint?" He teased, admittedly smug that she would care about that detail.

Fi pushed her lips to the side, narrowing her eyes. "Nevermindjackass."

"Hahaha—ow!" He laughed at her transparency, earning a sharp kick to his thigh closest to her.

"Moving on." She huffed. "How did you come by Wado?"

It wasn't difficult for him to talk about his lifelong ambition, nor was it hard for him to reflect on the promise he made with Kuina.

And he knew the question was coming. He'd not thought twice about describing it all the same as the other two.

So what was this sudden feeling?

Zoro brought his eyes back to Fi, willing his mouth to form words but suddenly tongue tied about it.

Her features shifted, not needing a verbal explanation. "Later, then."

Clearing his throat, he changed the subject. "That wasn't free—it's your turn. Tell me about chakra. Is it that weird glow thing you do?"

"I'll show you." Fi obliged, sitting up straight again and holding her hands out between them, palms up. Her hands tinged with a shimmering blue-green glow as she spoke.

"Chakra is haki, plain and simple, but with more understanding and acute control than how you idiotic pirates use it. Think of it as a pre-step to full armament haki."

Zoro leaned up and took her hands in his, inspecting them as they glowed, using observation haki to better sense what she described, noticing what she meant right away.

"So it's weak-ass armament haki."

"Not weak—refined." She emphasized with a warning look. "The chakra you see emanating from my hands now reflects a smaller, more controlled flow of haki, chakra, whatever, from one of several different points around the body where such power pools."

Fi described how she actively controlled the concentration or strength of chakra-haki based on need, like how far she had to leap, how hard she wanted to hit, and what kind of impact she needed to absorb to prevent hurting herself.

The result was an adaptable and enduring use of haki. It allowed her to conserve energy and withstand drawn-out fights against strong opponents.

"But if there's need…" She continued, hands turning a deep, lustrous onyx. "Armament haki is possible. Strength all depends on the person, of course."

"That's from just one of several points?"

"Right. There are seven major chakra points in a normal body." She nodded, letting the black armament haki fad from her hands as she relaxed and leaned back again. "Ninja train to both control and fully release each of these seven pools of power."

"What happens if you release more than one at the same time? Stronger haki?" Zoro wondered, leaning back again as well.

"Yes. One's power increases proportionate to the strength of the particular chakra points released." She held up a finger in caution. "It's all relative—the increase depends on the person's nature and training."

Zoro nodded, understanding that much at least. "What happens if all seven are released?"

"Good question, but that, too, hinges on a person's disposition. Only a handful of ninja can actually do such a thing, and it's different for each of us."

"What's it like for you?"

Fi's lips curled into an enigmatic smile. "I'll show you sometime."

Her expression, for no real fucking reason, lit Zoro up with interest and desire yet again. He studiously ignored the latter and forged ahead.

"You obviously use observation haki, too."

"Yes. Just as you know armament and observation haki to be distinct, ninja classify observation haki as the ability to sense a special kind of chakra called Chi."

Fi continued explaining with an air that wasn't actually arrogant for once.

"Chi is the life-force chakra that flows freely through the body of every living being. A person's unique Chi is called their chakra signature. It's the same as a unique haki presence."

"Some chakra-haki-whatever is concentrated into points and some flows." He repeated, scrunching his nose in distaste for details but wanting to get it right for some shitty reason. "And the ability to sense the flowing Chi stuff is the same as observation haki?"

"Right. I sense the Chi of all that's around me. The energy of attacks, the thirst of the Kitetsu behind you…" She gave him a half-smile that was certainly going to be his undoing one day. "Your volatile chakra signature."

They continued to chat back and forth about her use of observation haki.

Just like he, too, experienced, more acute concentration expanded the spatial range and scalar resolution. Being totally relaxed didn't mean she was unaware, but details blurred into the background. It sounded like her control of observation haki was so developed it was almost passive, and he wondered if even the shit cook's rivaled hers.

Zoro had a new appreciation for the speed at which Fi's speed mind worked to process it all in real-time during a fight.

It was giving him a headache, but he felt uncharacteristically inquisitive.

Nothing to do with the excited shine in her eyes as she explained shit he half understood. Not because she looked comfortable and happy to be conversing, especially considering she wasn't usually this talkative…

Dammit.

But there was something to be said for the ninja fuckery, since it wasn't just smoke and illusions.

"I still don't understand something. The shitty clone thing. I don't see how it's possible."

She sat up, a soft fucking smile on her lips. Another new, sidetracking look he'd not seen on her face 'til now.

"Oh, no—you have to figure that one out on your own. But I'll give you a hint."

He simply watched her, waiting.

She sat up on her knees and leaned in closer to him, balancing herself on one of his outstretched legs with a hand on his thigh.

"Seeing and sensing…" Raising her other hand, she traced a finger down the scar over his eye, from his brow to his cheek, then tapped the center of his forehead with her index finger. "Makes the eagle wise."

"Connecting the inner and the outer…" She sat her hand atop his head in that way of hers, but now he sensed an implication to the action that he didn't really understand. "Makes the tiger unstoppable."

She tilted her head with a small smile, and yet again, a distracting heat shot through Zoro.

It settled there uncomfortably, because fuck did have an impulse to bring her even closer, pull her into his lap and taste—

Shit.

He forcibly cut off that line of thought.

But hell…

Fi sat back again, breaking their contact, hopefully unaware of Zoro's internal conflict.

"I don't like riddles." He muttered

"Ahhhh…" She yawned, blinking her eyes against fatigue. "I could have guessed as much."

He leaned up from where he reclined against the chair back and rolled his shoulders out. "I've kept you awake."

"I'm glad." She gave him an easy smile, which she'd been doing a lot tonight.

"We both need a nap."

He stood and stretched his arms as high as they could reach, shuffling to the door.

Zoro paused at the threshold and looked over his shoulder one more time. Her relaxed posture and warm expression softened her in an almost surreal way.

Then she opened her mouth.

"Sorry if I hurt your tiny brain with animal allegories meant for children."

His scowl was immediate. "You have no right to the word tiny, you ankle-biter."

"Good-night, asshole pirate."

"G'night, shit ninja."

Pulling the door closed behind himself, he crossed the ship to the men's quarters, glancing to the already lightening horizon.

It was near dawn?

Strange. Zoro was not the chatty type. Some kind of ninjutsu bullshit, surely.

The whole thing had him feeling a kind of way that left him unable to sleep.

….Stupid tigers and eagles.

What the hell?